Rick Mosier, of Claremore, a member of the group Wind Waste, thinks critics of wind-energy incentives also misjudged how fast the industry would expand.

Two years ago, the group anticipated taxpayers would ultimately pay nearly $55 million a year. Now, he said, he expects $65 million in payments for 2014.

Wind Waste members focus on what they describe as “negative impacts” of wind energy development. For several years, they have focused on the zero-emission tax credit.

“It is, pun intended, growing like the wind,” Mosier said.

Lawmakers approved the credit in 2001 in a line tacked onto a bill releasing money for boating safety, he said. The credit was designed as an incentive to spur development of renewable energy.

Businesses that qualify receive credits based on the amount of energy produced by their facilities during the first 10 years of operation. Companies take advantage by lowering their tax payments to the state, then cashing in unused credits.

For example, if a company has a $100 tax credit but only owes $50 in taxes, it can sell back the remainder of its credit, or $50 worth, to the state for 85 cents on the dollar.

The reimbursement is paid from the state’s income tax fund.

Wind Waste wants lawmakers to wrangle the credit. Legislators could cap it, like New Mexico has done, or decide the wind industry is mature and doesn’t need the incentives it once did.

Mosier said wind is the only sector in Oklahoma that gets cash from state coffers. Everyone else is limited to using rebates to reduce income taxes.

“I think it went untouched because the proponents of wind convinced the Legislature that if we didn’t have some gratuity from the state taxpayers payable to them, that they’d go build their wind farms someplace else,” he said.

Mosier said he thinks legislators didn’t know what they were in for when they approved the credits.

Rep. Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville, who wasn’t in office when the 2001 deal was struck, said he knew full well the credits would grow to their current levels. He said he believes his colleagues in the Legislature knew it, as well.

“I sometimes don’t know if they fully grasp the magnitude,” he added.

Sears, chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget committee, is currently navigating the effects of a $900.8 million shortfall as he helps draft a new state budget.

Everything is on the table as lawmakers consider ways to cover that gap, he said, though he added he is reluctant to roll back tax credits — in any industry — for which businesses made plans when deciding to come to Oklahoma.

“I mean, how do you tell someone to come back to Oklahoma and we’ll do ‘X,’ and they get here and we say, ‘Guess what, we’re taking ‘X’ away from you?’” he said. “I just can’t be part of that.”

Still, Sears said the state could adjust future credits.

The Legislature did something like that last year, when it altered two other benefits for the wind industry. Lawmakers eliminated a five-year property tax exemption for new developments, starting in 2017, and they prohibited the industry from claiming investment or job-creation tax benefits.

Jeff Clark, executive director of The Wind Coalition, an industry group that encourages wind development in the region, said eliminating the zero-emission credit would go too far.

“Removing, or altering, this credit will have a devastating affect on those developers that not only offered up their ad valorem tax exemption last year, but more importantly, relied in good faith on our state’s laws encouraging them to choose Oklahoma over neighboring states,” he said in an email.

“In addition, it would further demonstrate that our neighboring states are ‘open for business’ while Oklahoma is not,” he said.

Clark said the incentives worked as intended and helped attract wind-energy investment as Oklahoma faced “fierce” competition from wind-producing neighbors Texas and Kansas.

“State tax incentives play a huge role in allowing Oklahoma to secure their development and continue to enjoy the long-term economic benefits brought by wind energy development,” he said.

New projects are added each year, and Oklahoma now ranks fourth in its capacity for wind energy, he said. Nearly 17 percent of the state’s electricity is now generated by wind.

In the meantime, he said, the industry pumps money into rural economies.

“Like the rest of the state’s business community, we are concerned about the state’s current fiscal situation,” he said. “But, we should remember that the state’s budget deficit is driven by slumping oil prices based on factors outside of the state, not business incentives that attract new economic activity, such as wind generation, to Oklahoma.”

This is from the Blue Creek Wind Project this morning. The resident said he lives in an airport. This is criminal to do to people.

The Climate Change Delusion and the Great Electricity Ripoff

This is exactly where we (the U.S) is heading, same policies, same direction, same religion and the same ideologies! This man & his wife are paying out $829.00 (US dollars) a month for electricity! We are being taken as fools! Stop falling for this massive hoax of man made climate change & so - called green energy scams supposedly helping to solve a problem that doesn't even exist!

Wind Turbine Infrasound Recordings Shown On An Oscilloscope

With all that alarmist propaganda, the alarmists have FAILED!

Kevon Martis testifying before the Michigan House Energy Policy Committee

Outrage grows over rising electricity rates in rural Ontario

Wake up America!

Hydraulic Fracturing - Unlocking American Energy

Wow, I like the part that says that the site is around the size of a 2 car garage..compare that to the hundreds and even thousands of acres sacrificed in the name of unreliable wind!

“I can’t enjoy outside anymore”

Greenwich Wake Up! Our silence is permission! We can have this proactive conversation while there is still time or, like this woman and so many more like her, allow the wind turbines to determine our quality of life!?!

A MUST see...EXCLUSIVE: Wind Energy War On The High Plains

In this exclusive report, Infowars reporter Millie Weaver exposes the explicit fraud, deception, and outright criminality behind wind energy and how it may be used to run rural communities off their properties as part of a major land grab effort in concert with Agenda 21.

Can We Rely on Wind and Solar?

Low Frequency Noise and Health

Lecture about low frequency noise and infrasound and its effects on health, by Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira. Held in Gram, Denmark, on December 14, 2016. (speaker is in English with English captions when Danish is spoken)

Wind Turbines Property Value Loss

Wind industry puppet regurgitates yet more spin...

Where Your Electricity Comes From

Recycling Retired Wind Turbines

Who Cleans Up When a Wind Farm Retires?

GNU Square Dance.. excuse the poor lighting..enjoy!

The Board of Zoning Appeals of Tipton County considered Juwi Wind's application for the Prairie Breeze Wind Farm. They were not fooled on the property value bait and switch.

Flying Low, Dodging Towers

GNU Meeting with Attorney Sam Randazzo

Take 20 minutes to educate yourself as to why Wind Farms are predators not solutions!

Wind Farm Remorse

"Destroying relationships and communities it's not worth a couple of thousand dollars a year!"

Health Board Says the Shirley Wind Project is a Health Hazard

The Global Warming Song

Global Warming; 31,487 Scientists say NO to Alarm

The Truth about CO2

Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say?

Is Climate Change Our Biggest Problem?

Carbon Dioxide Police!

So, really...you don't think this could happen?

T. Boone Pickens says he lost $200 million in wind energy

STOCKYARD HILL Spells It Out to ORIGIN ENERGY

Superb. Powerful and strong. It is time ruthless developers were told, faced down and kicked out. Good luck to you in your fight and may other campaigners across the world take confidence in your actions and follow your lead. Respect!﻿

The on site building of a wind turbine

It's just amazing the destruction done to the land to put this behemoth up!

German ecologists decry wind turbines

DOWN WIND - Wind Farm documentary in HD

Poisoning Pigeons in the "Wind Park"

Wind Farms Destroy the Environment 2: TOXIC WASTE

Wind Farms Destroy the Environment 3: HUMAN HEALTH

Reporter kicked out of AWEA meeting!

Events were held on the same day dealing with wind energy in Michigan by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the Informed Citizens Coalition (IICC).